「Drip of Mars」
by VioletMagi
Summary: The sequel fic to Escape Flight. Reading that first is highly recommended.


**Author's Note: This is a continuation of the fanfic I wrote, 'Escape Flight'. It is highly recommended to read that first.**

**「****Drip of Mars」**

A desolate wasteland. An eerie ambient melody played in the air, but it seemed so ubiquitous that Madotsuki did and could not identify the source. It was like somewhere inside the earth of this planet, a person swung against a rather large drum with its respective drumstick every few seconds, shaking the world on its outside with an audio tremor. Madotsuki felt the steely material rub against her back as she kept it there, holding it in a horizontal position to avoid harming herself with it. As she stepped from the spaceship, she felt the ground appear to crumble beneath her, revealing more lifeless earth. But it didn't. She glanced at the slender figure beside her, who stood without a clear expression, his spaced, minuscule eyes dotting around the surface of the newfound planet.

Madotsuki was the first to break the silence. 'You know that I've sacrificed a lot to come here,' she said with a grunt.

Masada-sensei replied, turning his unstable sight towards the brown-haired girl. 'Madotsuki...' he began. 'If you had killed me with that knife on the spaceship, we would both be as good as dead.'

'Even with autopilot active?' Madotsuki asked with a slightly calmer frown.

'Yes.'

The girl nodded, half-heartedly brooding as she scouted the area with her focused senses. The man beside her looked down at the decomposing ground and sighed, hopelessness residing in his pupils.

It was up to Madotsuki to break the silence once again. 'We excavate towards the center, absorb the stinking wastes of this godforsaken planet and take off?' she asked. 'You know that getting me to do the difficult part - because according to you, I'm the only one who can - will be a risk to my life as a whole.'

Masada-sensei shrugged, timidly looking back up at Madotsuki who was still observing for any Mars personnel. 'I hope you're not planning anything going against my wishes,' he muttered. 'Are you?'

Madotsuki twisted towards Masada-sensei, her braids fluttering in the outwardly non-existent air. 'I trust you only to the amount you trust me,' she said, sternly looking the pianist in the eyes, causing him to quickly glance away miserably and nod.

As much as she loved him and he loved her, they were always different - separate in kind and nature. They could never be truly together. It was always implied in the look of their eyes as they looked upon each other, one with a shaking smile - eternally bent on remaining heartwarming - and the other with a blood-curdling glare, the sight of a sharp glaive witnessed in the ocular reflections. If one of them died this night or day, the living would have to live life alone, restlessly waiting to be put out of their misery. That is what was decided between the pair of antitheses.

'I'm going to head over there,' said Madotsuki, starting to walk across the rusting surface. There were a few footsteps approaching from behind, and a slight tugging at Madotsuki's sleeve.

'W-Wait.' A thoughtless Masada-sensei looked at her, mouth hanging mildly open. The girl shook off his gentle fingers with a swipe.

'You'll be fine on your own,' Madotsuki mumbled carelessly, beginning to walk away. Masada-sensei watched as her figure became smaller and smaller as the void of space began to consume the teenager. He called out. 'I hope you'll know the way back!' His voice was raspy - perhaps Madotsuki hadn't heard her clearly. He noticed the figure stop for a second, turn back, braids swaying beside her, and turn away once more, walking the path she had decided she was going to follow permanently. The tall man leaned against the spaceship, awkwardly feeling a pang of loneliness, guilt, and other mixed emotions creeping up to his shallow chest. He breathed out, despite there being no perceptible oxygen in the atmosphere. Well, what was there to lose? He thought to himself, trying to bring hopeful feelings back into his fragile structure. Madotsuki will be back soon... won't she?

That's when he remembered about the escape pods. He thought on it clearly. If he was mistaken, and he had followed Madotsuki - the girl would have made it back on an alternate route and taken the spaceship. That's when he also remembered that without both of them, the spaceship couldn't take flight. It required them both. The model he flew to Mars was built on emotion. It needed emotion, good or bad. Without the emotions of two people that loved each other, it would be malfunctional. Of course, Madotsuki could impale the poor musician with the piercing ornament she brought along and drag him into the spaceship in order to fuel its desires - but the emotion would be drained away before she even realised. The escape pods - they weren't built by Masada-sensei. They were built, in fact, for him. The science project brought an old friend of his to deposit escape pods out on Mars, but they didn't realise the gravitational potential the escape pods had, and they crashed upon landing. Mars was rather huge to travel on via foot transport. Madotsuki could easily have repaired the pods due to what she learned from Masada-sensei. He thought she wasn't listening, but it was possible she did. Very, very possible. Tears began to well up in his eyes. Before he met Madotsuki, the windowed child of dreams, he rarely cried. Only for an old friend of his, he did. But he didn't like to recall that.

Overwhelmed with hopelessness, he collapsed into tears against the spaceship. There wasn't anyone else out there, not even the old Martian friend of his. He was to be forever isolated on the world he wanted to be on, purely to retrieve the drip of Mars and combat his financial crisis. The first person he looked to was Madotsuki, and she was the person to leave him - desert him on the wasteland he sought. His sight was clouded with droplets of melancholy and stinging guilt. Although he wasn't paying attention to any sounds around him - if there were any - there was the takeoff of an unidentified flying object somewhere on the other side of Mars. Masada-sensei was no longer capable of getting back. When the possibility arose that he could use one of the other escape pods, the voice of his Martian friend returned to him, reminding him that only one survived the gravitational pull of Mars. There wasn't any gravity in space, so how did it crash with such strength...? What happened on this planet? Sure, it was expected to collide with even the slightest speed, but three out of four pods were damaged beyond repair and one only lost a few parts, according to a 'thorough' satellite report.

The thoughts assaulted Masada-sensei as he lay on the ground, a fallen man once strong enough to fight his fears of failing as a human being, but now only able to choke out his relentless cries. It lasted for eternity, the crying. It wouldn't stop, not even for the breadth of a second. He felt his vision turning to black momentarily, and panic was wrought upon his feeble heart. His voice escaped his throat. "M-Madotsuki... why..." He coughed, feeling a portion of what seemed to be red liquid escaping his face's lower orifice. He didn't bother to check what the secretion was himself. As his vision began to painfully and slowly fade out, he visualised - or did he genuinely see? - a figure looming over his body. The sight of the aethereal space disappeared in a blink of void. Instead, it became a pure white. Like the spaceship he owned. The figure stood for aeons, staring at him from above. He began to make out features - little details on his currently benign assailant. Partly dark hair. The hem of a dress - was it a dress? - hanging on their lower body. Small layered clothing. Then the hair... the hair had two rope-like strings hanging on each side. Just hanging there, motionless. He blinked again. More features. They were wearing a sweater... the hem wasn't from a dress, but of a knee-length skirt. They glared ominously. Waited. Waited for Masada-sensei to perhaps - _utter_ his last words. He hadn't forgotten. He had remembered.

'Madotsuki... why?'

The figure shrugged. 'Masada-sensei... I'm not sure why I brought you here. We're on a cruise ship on Mars - but what for? _To find the **drip of Mars**, _you said._** Disregard** all the irrelevant details, they don't matter to us now._'

The familiar voice shook Masada-sensei to the core. He caught the glint of something by the assailant's side.

'But... why are you back? Madotsuki, my love, we're on the spaceship, we could make our way and leave-'

'Wrong.' The very word broke Masada-sensei into two fragments, and neither could be reunited again.

'W-Why...?' He coughed as he spoke. More of the liquid flowed, becoming closer to a seamless stream of fluids.

'I know what you feel - what you've felt, and what feelings you will have in the future. I know why we're here. I know...' There was a stunningly excruciating pause. 'Everything you've taught me is a lie.'

Masada-sensei panted for clear breath, but it felt like his oxygen supply was being severed. 'No... Madotsuki, don't be like this...'

The girl's voice became a roar. 'Don't be _****ing_ like this?!' What the **** are you insinuating like that?! It's like you sold me off to someone - treating me, your student, like trash! You are why I've become like this, sensei! And this time-' She raised the weapon. '-You'll regret it!'

The impact into Masada-sensei caused the spaceship to rocket down. Rocket down...? Wait...

Masada-sensei choked on any other words and gurgled on his blood. His eyes fell into utter dismay, no longer darting back and forth like they used to. The pressure on his chest was heavy, too heavy for him to bear, so he lay there in blood, sweat and tears. The sudden turbulence was a lot for Madotsuki to handle, too. Madotsuki cried out.

Cried out.

The voice that Masada-sensei had never heard in days after he decided on this travel to the foreign world with her fellow female companion.

'Masada-sensei...' she whimpered, cowering over the man's soon to be lifeless body. 'I'm sorry... I didn't know...' Her soft, hopeless voice filled Masada-sensei's ears. Even though he was inevitably going to fade away from the world, the monotone edges of his lips inclined upwards on his dying face.

Madotsuki looked upon that calmed face with widened, tear-filled eyes. 'P-Please... if - since we're going to die...' She held onto his shoulders and huddled into his chest. The spaceship plummeted to an unknown neighbouring world at an intense speed. Madotsuki's words were the last to fill the emptying air.

'Don't let me die alone...'


End file.
